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If Andrea Horwath’s goal in Monday night’s provincial leaders’ debate was to show that she can rise above the squabbling between Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne and Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford, they handed that win right to her.
“This is the problem with Ontario right here, folks,” Horwath said to the small audience in a small studio at CITY-TV in Toronto, while Ford pressed Wynne on hydro executives’ pay and Wynne simultaneously counterattacked on Ford’s “backroom deal” to open Toronto’s greenbelt to housing development. “While these two argue — hydro bills are going through the roof while these two argue.”
Pretty much.
Ford’s campaign is animated by loathing of Liberals in general and Wynne in particular; Wynne’s is driven by fear of Ford. They have no choice but to battle when they’re on a stage together. The set-up, all three leaders on their feet, Ford on the audience’s left, Wynne in the middle and Horwath on the right, made it easy for Horwath to physically disengage when the other two went at each other.
This was the second debate in a campaign that doesn’t officially even start until later this week, counting one organized by a coalition of Black-community groups in early April (Ford didn’t attend that one). This one was explicitly about Toronto issues, though health and education and the state of the economy matter everywhere. Ford’s the front-runner in polls, but his support is soft and Wynne and Horwath each want to convince voters that they’re the natural alternative.
Wynne’s message: Governing is hard and we’ve been a lot better at it than we get credit for. Hydro prices have gone up, yes, because we’ve rebuilt a ramshackle power system and that costs money. Health care isn’t fixed but we’re spending billions of dollars more on it than ever before and waiting lists have shrunk. Police officers still “card” innocent people but we’ve banned the practice and now we’re working on enforcing our new rules. And so on.
Horwath’s: Governing is hard, the Liberals haven’t been that good at it, and we’d be better. Privatizing Hydro One has been disappointing and expensive. We’d give cities a lot more money for transit. Anything that’s still going wrong in Ontario after 15 years of Liberal governments, Kathleen Wynne has to wear.
Ford’s: Governing is easy.
The Tory leader is really good at describing ends: Racism-free policing, and police forces properly funded. Four cents of every dollar of government spending cut, without cutting services or public-service jobs. Great drug-treatment services, and help for kids with autism. No waiting lists. $5 billion in new money for Toronto transit. Tons of housing young people can afford to buy.
How do we get there? If he has any idea, he’s not telling. He has sentiments, not policies. The Tory leader’s favourite technique, on being asked what he’d do about some problem, was to answer the opposite question.
How would he deal with the neighbourhood-safety issues associated with supervised drug-injection sites and new marijuana stores?
“My friend, what I’m not going to do, I’m not going to have injection sites in neighbourhoods,” he said.
How would he improve transit in Toronto? “What we won’t be doing is feathering anybody’s nest.”
Wynne’s campaign theme is “Care, not cuts,” and she tried mightily to get Ford to talk about how he’d remove billions from Ontario’s $150-billion budget without anybody noticing.
“It is not possible to cut $6 billion out of government services and not hurt people,” she told him.
Whatever, yes it is, Ford said. I go around Ontario and everyone thinks so. Unlike the other two, he asserted, he’s helped run a government, so he knows what he’s doing. Which is bizarre — he was a city councillor in Toronto for one term, yes, but Horwath was a Hamilton councillor for three terms and has been an MPP since 2004. Wynne’s been a school trustee, an MPP since 2003, holder of major cabinet posts, and the premier of Ontario for five years.
“Kathleen, you got a nice smile on your face there,” Ford told Wynne at one point.
On camera, that smile appeared instantly to freeze.
“So do you, Doug,” Wynne said after an eternity. Moderator Cynthia Mulligan remarked that it was the nicest moment in the debate. It was just an eyebrow-twitch from a homicide.
The election is in one month.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
“This is the problem with Ontario right here, folks,” Horwath said to the small audience in a small studio at CITY-TV in Toronto, while Ford pressed Wynne on hydro executives’ pay and Wynne simultaneously counterattacked on Ford’s “backroom deal” to open Toronto’s greenbelt to housing development. “While these two argue — hydro bills are going through the roof while these two argue.”
Pretty much.
Ford’s campaign is animated by loathing of Liberals in general and Wynne in particular; Wynne’s is driven by fear of Ford. They have no choice but to battle when they’re on a stage together. The set-up, all three leaders on their feet, Ford on the audience’s left, Wynne in the middle and Horwath on the right, made it easy for Horwath to physically disengage when the other two went at each other.
This was the second debate in a campaign that doesn’t officially even start until later this week, counting one organized by a coalition of Black-community groups in early April (Ford didn’t attend that one). This one was explicitly about Toronto issues, though health and education and the state of the economy matter everywhere. Ford’s the front-runner in polls, but his support is soft and Wynne and Horwath each want to convince voters that they’re the natural alternative.
Wynne’s message: Governing is hard and we’ve been a lot better at it than we get credit for. Hydro prices have gone up, yes, because we’ve rebuilt a ramshackle power system and that costs money. Health care isn’t fixed but we’re spending billions of dollars more on it than ever before and waiting lists have shrunk. Police officers still “card” innocent people but we’ve banned the practice and now we’re working on enforcing our new rules. And so on.
Horwath’s: Governing is hard, the Liberals haven’t been that good at it, and we’d be better. Privatizing Hydro One has been disappointing and expensive. We’d give cities a lot more money for transit. Anything that’s still going wrong in Ontario after 15 years of Liberal governments, Kathleen Wynne has to wear.
Ford’s: Governing is easy.
The Tory leader is really good at describing ends: Racism-free policing, and police forces properly funded. Four cents of every dollar of government spending cut, without cutting services or public-service jobs. Great drug-treatment services, and help for kids with autism. No waiting lists. $5 billion in new money for Toronto transit. Tons of housing young people can afford to buy.
How do we get there? If he has any idea, he’s not telling. He has sentiments, not policies. The Tory leader’s favourite technique, on being asked what he’d do about some problem, was to answer the opposite question.
How would he deal with the neighbourhood-safety issues associated with supervised drug-injection sites and new marijuana stores?
“My friend, what I’m not going to do, I’m not going to have injection sites in neighbourhoods,” he said.
How would he improve transit in Toronto? “What we won’t be doing is feathering anybody’s nest.”
Wynne’s campaign theme is “Care, not cuts,” and she tried mightily to get Ford to talk about how he’d remove billions from Ontario’s $150-billion budget without anybody noticing.
“It is not possible to cut $6 billion out of government services and not hurt people,” she told him.
Whatever, yes it is, Ford said. I go around Ontario and everyone thinks so. Unlike the other two, he asserted, he’s helped run a government, so he knows what he’s doing. Which is bizarre — he was a city councillor in Toronto for one term, yes, but Horwath was a Hamilton councillor for three terms and has been an MPP since 2004. Wynne’s been a school trustee, an MPP since 2003, holder of major cabinet posts, and the premier of Ontario for five years.
“Kathleen, you got a nice smile on your face there,” Ford told Wynne at one point.
On camera, that smile appeared instantly to freeze.
“So do you, Doug,” Wynne said after an eternity. Moderator Cynthia Mulligan remarked that it was the nicest moment in the debate. It was just an eyebrow-twitch from a homicide.
The election is in one month.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
